The Future of Fleksy in the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame

Update 6 Feb, 2014: This vote is now closed. The decision of the AppleVis community was that Fleksy VO replace the original Fleksy app in our Hall of Fame.

 

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The AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame is a collection of fully accessible apps that showcases the hard work that developers put into making apps that are both very good at what they do and completely accessible to users who are blind.

 

As many users will be aware, Syntellia - the developer of Fleksy - has recently released a version of Fleksy specifically for VoiceOver users.  The app is called Fleksy VO - For VoiceOver Users, and it is available from the App Store for free.

 

Today, Syntellia released an update to the original Fleksy app, Version 2.2, which -based on our testing - appears to have dropped most VoiceOver support.

 

Currently, Fleksy Keyboard - Happy Typing is a member of the AppleVis iOS App Hall of Fame.  However, given the recent changes in the app's accessibility, we feel it is time to reassess Fleksy's place in the Hall of Fame.

 

This would normally be a straightforward process where the app would be suspended from the Hall of Fame for a period of time, giving the developer a reasonable amount of time to correct the accessibility issues in question. If the issues were not corrected, the app would be removed from the Hall of Fame and would have to be voted back into the Hall of Fame at a later point if accessibility was to improve.

 

However, given that Syntellia has made Fleksy VO available with full accessibility, the decision is less clear.  As the apps in our iOS App Hall of Fame were selected by the AppleVis community, we felt that the best thing to do would be to put the options on the table, start a dialog, and let all interested users take a vote on the following options:

 

To help inform your opinion, you should read this recent blog post by Syntellia, in which they clarify the status of Fleksy VO and state that their long term goal is “to offer one app on iOS that meets the needs of everyone”.